This invention relates generally to the art of hard hats, and more specifically to brackets used for holding pivotable face shields on hard hats.
Hard hats and face shields have long been used for performing work involving flying particles. In this regard, flying small metal and other particles can easily cause temporary and/or permanent damage to workers' eyes and faces and, for this reason, transparent face masks, or shields, are normally worn by workers around such flying small particles. In addition, workers at most work sites are required to wear hard hats to protect their heads from contact with heavy objects. For this reason, brackets having face shields pivotally mounted thereon have been developed for portably attaching pivotal face shields to hard hats. A typical prior-art bracket includes an elongated, curved, channel member which is placed about the front rim of a hard hat with a groove thereof receiving the front rim. A securing band is attached to rear opposite ends of the channel member for extending about the rear end of the hard hat to pull the channel member against the rim. A face shield is pivotally attached to the channel member. Such an arrangement allows a face shield to be easily mounted on and removed from diverse types of hard hats. However, a major deficiency that such face shield brackets have had is that flying particles striking hard hats, slide down the fronts thereof and fall about the front rims of the hard hats within the channels. These particles eventually fall from the bottoms of the channels, behind the face shields, often into eyes of users thereof. It is an object of this invention to provide a hard hat face shield bracket which does not ordinarily allow particles to travel about the rim of an elongated channel member thereof and fall into the face of a user thereof.
It is also an object of this invention to provide a hard hat face shield bracket which looks and functions substantially in the same manner as those which are already commercially available, but yet which hinders particles from moving about front rims of hard hats and falling behind a face shield into a wearer's face.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a hard hat face shield bracket which is not significantly more expensive than those which are already commercially available, but yet which has the advantages described above.